Eaters of the Dead Painting

"Each person bears a fear which is special to him. One man fears a close space and another man fears drowning; each laughs at the other and calls him stupid. Thus fear is only a preference, to be counted the same as the preference for one woman or another, or mutton for pig, or cabbage for onion." "The risk is too great. A man cannot place too much faith in any one thing, neither a woman, nor a horse, nor a weapon, nor any single thing." "The meaning of these discoveries has not yet been sorted out, but it is certainly now impossible to regard the prehistoric Europeans as savages idly." "Yet I have discovered that if all those around you believe some particular thing, you will soon be tempted to share in that belief…" "Herger said to me, 'Be thankful, for you are fortunate.’ I inquired the source of my fortune. Herger said in reply, 'If you have the fear of high places, than this day you shall overcome it; and so you shall have faced a great challenge; and so you shall be adjudged a hero.'" "Praise not the day until evening has come, a woman until she is burnt, a sword until it is tried, a maiden until she is married, ice until it has been crossed, beer until it has been drunk." -Michael Crichton (Eaters of the Dead) Eaters of the Dead: The Manuscript of Ibn Fadlan Relating His Experiences with the Northmen in AD 922 (later republished as The 13th Warrior to correspond with the film adaptation of the novel) is a 1976 novel by Michael Crichton, the fourth novel under his own name and his fourteenth overall. The story is about a 10th-century Muslim Arab who travels with a group of Vikings to their settlement. Crichton explains in an appendix that the book was based on two sources. The first three chapters are a retelling of Ahmad ibn Fadlan's personal account of his actual journey north and his experiences with and observations of Varangians. The remainder is based upon the story of Beowulf. Plot Summary: The novel is set in the 10th century. The Caliph of Baghdad, Al-Muqtadir, sends his ambassador, Ahmad ibn Fadlan, on a mission to assist the king of the Volga Bulgars. Ahmad ibn Fadlan never arrives, as he is conscripted by a group of Vikings to take part in a hero's quest to the north; he is taken along as the thirteenth member of their group to comply with a soothsayer's requirement for success. In the north, the group battles with the 'mist-monsters', or 'wendol', a tribe of vicious savages (suggested by the narrator to have been possibly relictNeanderthals) who go to battle wearing bear skins. Eaters of the Dead is narrated as a scientific commentary on an old manuscript. The narrator describes the story as a composite of extant commentaries and translations of the original story teller's manuscript. The narration makes several references to a possible change or mistranslation of the original story by later copiers. The story is told by several different voices: the editor/narrator, the translators of the script, and the original author, Ahmad ibn Fadlan, who also relates stories told by others. A sense of authenticity is supported by occasional explanatory footnotes with references to a mixture of factual and fictitious sources. Sources and Inspiration: In the afterword, Crichton gives a few comments on the book's origin. A good friend of Crichton's was giving a lecture on the "Bores of Literature". Included in his lecture was an argument on Beowulf and why it was simply uninteresting. Crichton opined that the story was not a bore but was, in fact, a very interesting work. The argument escalated until Crichton stated that he would prove to him that the story could be interesting if presented in the correct way. Abdul Alḥaẓred's Necronomicon (of H. P. Lovecraft fame) is mentioned in passing as a reference. Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn Rāšid ibn Ḥammād, (Arabic: أحمد بن فضلان بن العباس بن راشد بن حماد‎; c. 879–960) commonly known as Ahmad ibn Fadlan, was a 10th-century Arab Muslim traveler, famous for his account of his travels as a member of an embassy of the Abbasid caliph, al-Muqtadir of Baghdad, to the king of the Volga Bulgars, known as his risāla ("account" or "journal"). His account is most notable for providing a detailed description of the Volga Vikings, including eyewitness accounts of life as part of a trade caravan and witnessing a ship burial. Ibn Fadlan's detailed writings have been cited by numerous historians. They have also inspired entertainment works, including Michael Crichton's novel Eaters of the Dead and its film adaptation The 13th Warrior. The Varangians (/vəˈrændʒiənz/; Old Norse: Væringjar; Medieval Greek: Βάραγγοι, Várangoi; or Varyags (Old East Slavic: варяже, varyazhe or варязи, varyazi; Russian: варяги, varyagi; Ukrainian: варяги, varyahy; Belarusian: варагі, varahi; Medieval Greek: Βαριάγοι, Variágoi,) sometimes referred to as Variagians, was the name given by Greeks, Rus' people, and others to Vikings. Between the 9th and 11th centuries, Varangians ruled the medieval state of Kievan Rus', settled among many territories of modern Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, and formed the Byzantine Varangian Guard.[7][8] According to the 12th-century Kievan Primary Chronicle, a group of Varangians known as the Rus'[9] settled in Novgorod in 862 under the leadership of Rurik. Before Rurik, the Rus' might have ruled an earlier hypothetical polity named Rus' Khaganate. Rurik's relative Oleg conquered Kiev in 882 and established the state of Kievan Rus', which was later ruled by Rurik's descendants. Engaging in trade, piracy, and mercenary activities, Varangians roamed the river systems and portages of Gardariki, as the areas north of the Black Sea were known in the Norse sagas. They controlled the Volga trade route (between the Varangians and the Muslims), connecting the Baltic to the Caspian Sea, and the Dnieper and Dniester trade route (between Varangians and the Greeks) leading to the Black Sea and Constantinople. Those were the critically important trade links at that time, connecting Medieval Europe with Abbasid Caliphates and the Byzantine Empire; Most of the silver coinage in the West came from the East via those routes. Attracted by the riches of Constantinople, the Varangian Rus' initiated a number of Rus'-Byzantine Wars, some of which resulted in advantageous trade treaties. At least from the early 10th century many Varangians served as mercenaries in the Byzantine Army, constituting the elite Varangian Guard (the personal bodyguards of Byzantine emperors). Eventually most of them, both in Byzantium and in Eastern Europe, were converted from Norse paganism to Orthodox Christianity, culminating in the Christianization of Kievan Rus' in 988. Coinciding with the general decline of the Viking Age, the influx of Scandinavians to Rus' stopped, and Varangians were gradually assimilated by East Slavs by the late 11th century. John Michael Crichton (/ˈkraɪtən/; October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008) was an American author and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films. His literary works are usually within the science fiction, techno-thriller, and medical fiction genres, and heavily feature technology. His novels often explore technology and failures of human interaction with it, especially resulting in catastrophes with biotechnology. Many of his novels have medical or scientific underpinnings, reflecting his medical training and scientific background. Crichton received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1969 but did not practice medicine, choosing to focus on his writing instead. Initially writing under a pseudonym, he eventually wrote 26 novels, including The Andromeda Strain (1969), The Terminal Man (1972), The Great Train Robbery (1975), Congo (1980), Sphere (1987), Jurassic Park (1990), Rising Sun (1992), Disclosure (1994), The Lost World(1995), Airframe (1996), Timeline (1999), Prey (2002), State of Fear (2004), and Next (2006). Several novels, in various states of completion, were published after his death in 2008. Crichton was also involved in the film and television industry. In 1973, he wrote and directed Westworld, the first film to utilize 2D computer-generated imagery. He also directed Coma (1978), The First Great Train Robbery (1979), Looker (1981), and Runaway (1984). He was the creator of the television series ER (1994–2009) and several of his novels were adapted into films, most notably the Jurassic Park franchise. Source: Wikipedia

Painting:Acrylic on Canvas

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:72 W x 48 H x 1.5 D in

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